On October 10, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded to criticism of the Bush administration's treatment of North Korea by assailing former President Clinton's North Korea policy. McCain argued that the Agreed Framework, a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, had been a “failure” and claimed that every time the Clinton White House “warned the Koreans not to do something -- not to kick out the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor -- they did it” and “were rewarded ... with more talks.” But in an article on these remarks, The Washington Post entirely ignored the fact that the Agreed Framework apparently prevented the North Koreans from producing any plutonium until the Bush administration abandoned the Framework in 2002 -- a point Clinton made in a statement responding to McCain's criticism. In an interview on the October 11 edition of NBC's Today, McCain repeated, without challenge, his misleading criticism of the Clinton administration's policy. Additionally, CNN host Wolf Blitzer repeated McCain's argument on the October 11 edition of CNN's The Situation Room.

Following a claim on October 8 by North Korea that it had tested a nuclear weapon, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) issued a statement calling the situation “extremely serious.” Sen. Clinton asserted, “Some of the reasons we are facing this dangerous situation is because of the failed policies of the Bush Administration. I regret deeply their failure to deal with the threat posed by North Korea.” Appearing at an October 10 campaign event in Southfield, Michigan, for Republican Senate candidate Mike Bouchard, McCain responded to Sen. Clinton's criticism of the Bush administration by “remind[ing]” her that the Clinton administration's policy toward North Korea “was a failure.” In an October 11 article, Post staff writer Charles Babington reported the back-and-forth between the two senators:

In what sounded to many Washington ears yesterday like an early shot in the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) singled out Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he denounced the Clinton administration's policies toward North Korea.

“I would remind Senator Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush administration policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure,” McCain said in a speech near Detroit, where he was campaigning for a Republican Senate candidate. “Every single time the Clinton administration warned the Koreans not to do something -- not to kick out the IAEA inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor -- they did it. And they were rewarded every single time by the Clinton administration with further talks.”

Babington went on to quote from a statement issued by Sen. Clinton's spokesman in response to McCain's remarks:

Philippe Reines, spokesman for Hillary Clinton, said of McCain's remarks: “Now is not the time to play politics of the most dangerous kind. ... President Bush has been in charge of North Korea policy for six years, and two days ago we saw the brazen result.”

He said the New York senator “supports an approach that protects us from the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons, as the Clinton administration successfully did for eight years.”

Further, Babington noted that McCain's criticism of the Agreed Framework echoed that put forth by the Bush administration in 2003:

McCain's remarks echo those made by Bush administration officials in early 2003. Abandoning a previous insistence that only North Korea was to blame for the brewing nuclear crisis, Bush allies then began arguing it was the predictable result of a flawed 1994 agreement between the Clinton administration and Pyongyang. The pact, they contended, granted benefits to North Korea while leaving until later the threat of sanctions.

But while Babington's article included Reines's statement that Sen. Clinton “supports” her husband's approach, he did not inform readers of the apparent results of that policy. Indeed, under the Agreed Framework -- which the Bush administration abandoned in 2002 -- North Korea did not produce any plutonium for eight years, as noted in a separate statement released on October 10 by Ben Yarrow, a spokesman for President Clinton:

For eight years during the Clinton Administration, there was no new plutonium production, no nuclear weapons tests and therefore no additional nuclear weapons developed on President Clinton's watch. President Clinton's policy toward the North was strong and effective, pairing clear red lines with tough, smart engagement. Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Clinton's policy toward the North in 2001. The Clinton Administration's approach has been turned on its head and North Korea now has demonstrated its nuclear weapons capability to the world. It is unfortunate that anyone would attempt to rewrite history to score political points at a time when we need to address this serious threat.

Indeed, signed on October 21, 1994, the agreement stipulated that North Korea would halt its plutonium production and lock up its stockpile of spent fuel rods (used to make weapons-grade plutonium). In return, the United States, along with the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, would assist with the country's energy needs. During the next eight years, North Korea abided by the agreement and its plutonium-based facilities and materials remained under constant United Nations surveillance, as an October 10 Los Angeles Times article described:

Little more than four years ago, the North Korean nuclear weapons program was largely under lock and key, the threat seen as a fleeting crisis of a previous decade.

North Korea's main nuclear center at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, was monitored 24 hours a day by U.N. surveillance cameras. International inspectors lived near the site. Seals were in place over key nuclear installations and a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon was gathering dust.

In October 2002, however, North Korea admitted to having operated a clandestine uranium enrichment program. While the Agreed Framework covered only the North Korean plutonium-based nuclear facilities, the Bush administration considered its newly disclosed uranium program a violation of the "spirit" of the agreement. In response, the Bush administration announced (subscription required) in November 2002 that it would eliminate funding for, and ultimately end, fuel oil shipments to North Korea, an act that went contrary to the terms of the Agreed Framework. North Korea subsequently began producing plutonium (subscription required) in early 2003. The country has since accumulated 20-43 kilograms of the fissile material, enough for two to 12 nuclear weapons. But the fact remains that during years the Agreed Framework was in force, North Korea produced no plutonium, as Yarrow's statement asserted. Nonetheless, Babington left out this fact in his article.

Moreover, Babington uncritically reported McCain's misleading claims that, under the Agreed Framework, North Korea “kick[ed] out the IAEA inspectors” and “remove[d] the fuel rods from their reactor.” In fact, during the eight years the Agreed Framework was in place, IAEA inspectors remained in the country. They were expelled in December 2002 after the Bush administration abandoned the agreement. Further, while the 8,000 fuel rods in North Korea's possession in 1994 were indeed moved from the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, this action was taken by the IAEA in order to store them under the terms of the Agreed Framework and was not in violation of the agreement, as McCain appeared to suggest. The IAEA began transporting the rods in 1996 and announced that it had completed the storage process in 2000.

By contrast to the Post, Associated Press staff writer Sarah Karush noted Yarrow's response in her October 10 AP article on McCain's remarks:

A spokesman for President Clinton, Ben Yarrow, said in a statement that it was “unfortunate that anyone would attempt to rewrite history to score political points at a time when we need to address this serious threat.”

“For eight years during the Clinton administration, there was no new plutonium production, no nuclear weapons tests and therefore no additional nuclear weapons developed on President Clinton's watch,” said Yarrow, who added that Colin Powell, Bush's secretary of State, endorsed Clinton's policy toward North Korea in 2001.

Karush further noted Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) statement that, while the Agreed Framework was not “a perfect agreement ... [a]t least we had inspectors going in and we knew where the (nuclear fuel) rods were”:

“He must be trying to burnish his credentials for the nomination process,” said Kerry, who labeled McCain's comments “flat politics and incorrect.”

“The truth is the Clinton administration knew full well they didn't have a perfect agreement. But at least they were talking. At least we had inspectors going in and we knew where the (nuclear fuel) rods were. This way, we don't know where the rods are, the rods are gone. There are no inspectors. Ask any American which way is better,” Kerry said.

On the October 11 editions of Today and ABC's Good Morning America, McCain repeated his criticism of the Clinton administration's North Korea policy. On Today, he stated that North Korea violated the Agreed Framework “time after time, and we never did anything about it,” describing this account as “a matter of history.” But during the interview, co-host Meredith Vieira did not press McCain on the basis for this claim, nor did she note the overarching point that the agreement successfully halted North Korea's plutonium production for eight years.

Similarly, McCain argued on Good Morning America that the Agreed Framework allowed North Korea to “keep plutonium rods” and stated that they were “enriching uranium in violation” of the “spirit” of the treaty. But in this case, co-host Diane Sawyer responded by paraphrasing Kerry's statement, saying, "[H]owever they may have cheated, at least we were talking; at least we knew where the fuel rods were. There were inspections. There were 8,000 fuel rods, and they knew where they were; and that even if they were cheating on the margins that it deterred perhaps as many as 80 bombs." After McCain dismissed Kerry's defense, Sawyer went on to note that Powell endorsed the Agreed Framework, as Yarrow noted in his statement. Indeed, Powell said in 2003, “The previous administration I give great credit to for freezing that plutonium site. ... Lots of nuclear weapons were not made because of the Agreed Framework and the work of President Clinton and his team.”

In an interview with Scott Ritter, a former intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector, on the October 10 edition of The Situation Room, Blitzer strongly echoed McCain's misleading remarks in response to Ritter's criticism of the Bush administration's North Korea policy. Blitzer stated that “the Clinton administration gave the North Koreans basically everything: a lot of assistance, promises of light-water reactors for peaceful purposes, but they were lying and cheating throughout those entire years, developing, on a separate track, a nuclear bomb.” But Blitzer did not mention the fact that the Clinton administration's policy had apparently halted the North Korea's plutonium production for eight years. And Blitzer overlooked this fact despite having conducted an interview with Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) a day earlier, during which Richardson made clear that, under the Agreed Framework, North Korea “did not develop any nuclear weapons.”

From the October 11 edition of NBC's Today:

VIEIRA: You have said -- you said yesterday that you believe the Clinton administration and its failed policy was responsible for the -- for the mess that we're in now. And Senator Clinton said quite the opposite -- she said that Bush lost the opportunity that had been presented to him under the Clinton administration, going one-on-one with North Korea, and created this -- this problem. So, who's missing the point here?

McCAIN: Let me just make it very, very clear. I would not have said anything if the Democrats -- Mrs. Clinton, Senator Kerry, [Senate Democratic Leader] Senator [Harry] Reid [NV] and others -- had not attacked the Bush administration. I said this in response to their attacks on President Bush. I think this is the wrong time for us to be engaging in finger-pointing, when this crucial time we need the world and Americans united in going to the United Nations bringing about sanctions and action -- meaningful action against North Korea.

VIEIRA: But, you still said that --

McCAIN: So, I responded to attacks, yes --

VIEIRA: Right, but you still said that the --

McCAIN: And I responded -- I responded to those attacks by pointing out my longstanding opposition to the agreed on framework, which I opposed at the time, because it was unverifiable, unenforceable. The North Koreans violated it time after time, and we never did anything about it. That's a matter of history.

From the October 11 edition of ABC's Good Morning America:

McCAIN: During the Clinton administration years, we concluded an unenforceable and un-transparent agreement, which allowed them [North Korea] to keep plutonium rods in a reactor, which they could, at any time that they chose to, to start conversion in order to make the nuclear material, and at the same time, the evidence is very strong that they were enriching uranium in violation -- not at least the letter of the treaty -- but certainly the spirit of it, because that material could be used to make nuclear weapons as well.

SAWYER: But this is an important question about what works and does not work in this region of the world -- this very difficult region of the world. Senator Kerry has said, “Look, whatever they were doing, however they may have cheated, at least we were talking; at least we knew where the fuel rods were. There were inspections. There were 8000 fuel rods, and they knew where they were; and that even if they were cheating on the margins that it deterred perhaps as many as 80 bombs.”

McCAIN: Well, we were talking to Adolph Hitler right up until the moment when he annexed Czechoslovakia. I think that unless there is some positive response on the part of the people you're talking to, that it's not a very useful exercise.

SAWYER: But the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell said, “The previous administration I give credit to for freezing that plutonium site. ... Lots of nuclear weapons were not made because of the Agreed Framework and the work of President Clinton and his team.” That's Colin Powell.

McCAIN: Yes, and I respectfully disagree. At the time that the agreement was made, I disagreed with it. I said they would break it. I said that it would -- this would put them on the path to developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them and that is exactly what happened; and they crossed red lines during that period of time, and we did nothing but more talk.

From the October 9 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

BLITZER: You served in the Clinton administration. With hindsight, was that a huge blunder to offer the North Koreans that kind of assistance -- nuclear assistance, humanitarian assistance, economic assistance -- given their track record as a Stalinist regime?

RICHARDSON: No, it was not a blunder. In fact, it was a success for eight years because of the Agreed Framework agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration. The North Koreans did not develop any nuclear weapons.

From the October 10 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

RITTER: Look, North Korea was a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And there was a period of time where there were weapons inspectors in North Korea doing a job. The Bush administration, again, because it seeks to isolate and destabilize the North Korean regime --

BLITZER: But the Clinton administration gave the North Koreans basically everything: a lot of assistance, promises of light-water reactors for peaceful purposes, but they were lying and cheating throughout that -- those entire years, developing, on a separate track, a nuclear bomb.

RITTER: I'm not here to either praise, you know, praise the Clinton administration's policies or condone the North Korean activities. I think we need to talk about the Bush administration because they're in power today.